Energy management in industry : a case study on the brewing industry

The industrial sector is the main energy user in South Africa, using about half the national total, and compared to most other industrialised countries South Africa has a high in_dustrial energy intensity, thus necessitating improved industrial energy management. The malt brewing industry was chosen as a case study industry to illustrate the potential for improved energy management in industry. Ohlsson's brewery in Cape Town was analysed in detail and energy management improvements identified for that brewery were ·expanded to include the malt brewing industry in general, by comparing Ohlsson's brewery to other breweries in South Africa. It was found that energy requirements at Ohlsson's Brewery could be reduced by 12-20%, by the implementation of economically feasible energy management schemes. However, mainly because of discrepancies in coal prices between Ohlsson's Brewery and most other breweries in South Africa, energy requirements for the brewing industry in general can be reduced by 7-13%. This translates to be a monetary saving of R242 000-R486 000/month, which is evenly spread between coal, electricity, and maximum demand savings. No single large energy saving scheme was identified, but the potential. savings are due to a number of schemes. The potential energy savings identified in this study exclude the savings as a result of the implementation of process sensitive schemes, which were considered beyond the scope of this study. Nevertheless some process sensitive schemes, associated with boiling in the brewhouse, could result in substantial savings. The energy usage target identified for South African breweries is higher than current energy requiiements for breweries in the Britain and Germany when climatic and operational constraints are taken into account. This is because Britain and Germany have higher energy costs relative to production costs, government incentive schemes for reducing energy usage, and more stringent environmental legislation often necessitating the recovery of brewhouse vapours

Improved Quantification of Important Beer Quality Parameters based on Non-linear Calibration Methods applied to FT-MIR Spectra

During the production process of beer, it is of utmost importance to guarantee a high consistency of the beer quality. For instance, the bitterness is an essential quality parameter which has to be controlled within the specifications already at the beginning of the production process in the unfermented beer (wort) as well as in final products such as beer and beer mix beverages. Nowadays, analytical techniques for quality control in beer production are mainly based on manual supervision, i.e. samples are taken from the process and analyzed in the laboratory. This typically requires significant lab technicians efforts for only a small fraction of samples to be analyzed, which leads to significant costs for beer breweries and companies. Fourier transform mid-infrared (FT-MIR) spectroscopy was used in combination with non-linear multivariate calibration techniques to overcome (i) the time consuming off-line analyses in beer production and (ii) already known limitations of standard linear chemometric methods , like partial least squares (PLS), for important quality parameters [1][2] such as bitterness, citric acid, total acids, free amino nitrogen, final attenuation or foam stability. The calibration models are established with enhanced non-linear techniques based (i) on a new piece-wise linear version of PLS by employing fuzzy rules for local partitioning the latent variable space and (ii) on extensions of support vector regression variants (ε-PLSSVR and ν-PLSSVR), for overcoming high computation times in high-dimensional problems and time-intensive and inappropriate settings of the kernel parameters. Furthermore, we introduce a new model selection scheme based on bagged ensembles in order to improve robustness and thus predictive quality of the final models. The approaches are tested on real-world calibration data sets for wort and beer mix beverages, and successfully compared to linear methods, as showing a clear out-performance in most cases and being able to meet the model quality requirements defined by the experts at the beer company

Energy recovery optimization in a brewery - a brewhouse case study

A case study concerning energy recovery optimization in beer productio

Study of the production system of a craft beer factory in Manlleu

En aquest projecte s’estudia el comportament econòmic d’una empresa que fabrica cervesa artesana a una fàbrica situada a Manlleu. El projecte va començar fa una mica més d’un any i l’objectiu actual és augmentar el nivell de producció per tal de consolidar nous mercats. Per aquest motiu, el projecte estudia el sistema de producció actual de la cervesa, així com l’estudi de tots els costos relacionats amb la seva producció. Posteriorment, s’analitza l’estudi i es proposen diverses millores per augmentar l’efectivitat de producció, i per reduir el cost final de la cervesa. Finalment, s’estudia en profunditat cadascuna de les diferents propostes de millora, i també s’elabora una anàlisi de viabilitat per veure la repercussió econòmica que tindrien les millores en l’empresaEn este proyecto se estudia el comportamiento económico de una empresa que fabrica cerveza artesana en una fábrica situada en Manlleu. El proyecto empezó hace un poco más de un año y medio, y el objetivo actual es aumentar el nivel de producción para consolidarse en nuevos mercados. Debido a esto, en el presente proyecto se realiza un estudio del sistema de producción actual de la cerveza, así como también se estudian todos los costes relacionados con su producción. Posteriormente, se analiza el estudio realizado y se proponen diversas mejoras para aumentar la efectividad de producción, y reducir el coste final de la cerveza. Finalmente, se estudia en profundidad todas las diferentes propuestas de mejora, además de realizar un análisis de viabilidad para ver la repercusión económica que tendrían las mejoras en la empresaThis project studies the economic behaviour of a company that manufactures craft beer in a factory located in Manlleu. The project was born a little bit over a year and a half ago, and the current objective is to increase the level of production to consolidate in new markets. Considering this goal, in the present project a study of the current beer production system is carried out, as well as all the costs related to the production of the beer are studied. Subsequently, the study is analysed, and various improvements are proposed to increase the effectiveness of the production, and to reduce the final cost of the beer. Finally, all the different proposals for improvements are studied in detail, in addition to conducting a feasibility analysis to see the economic impact that the improvements would have on the compan

Online monitoring of higher alcohols and esters throughout beer fermentation by commercial Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces pastorianus yeast

Higher alcohols and esters are among the predominant classes of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that influence the quality of beer. The concentrations of these compounds are determined through a specific yeast strain selection and fermentation conditions. The effect of yeast strains on the formation of higher alcohols and esters throughout fermentations (at 20°C) was investigated. Flavour-relevant esters (ethyl acetate, isoamyl acetate, ethyl hexanoate and ethyl octanoate) and higher alcohols (isoamyl alcohol, isobutyl alcohol and phenylethyl alcohol) were monitored throughout the fermentation using proton transfer reaction-time of flight-mass spectrometry (PTR-ToF-MS) coupled with an automated sampling system for continuous measurements. Compound identification was confirmed by analysis of samples using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Results demonstrated the specific time points where variation in higher alcohol and ester generation between yeast strains occurred. In particular, the concentrations of isoamyl acetate, ethyl octanoate and isoamyl alcohol between yeast strains were significantly different over the first 2 days of fermentation; whereas, after Day 3, no significant differences were observed. The two Saccharomyces pastorianus strains produced comparable concentrations of the key higher alcohols and esters. However, the key higher alcohol and ester concentrations varied greatly between the two S. cerevisiae strains. The use of PTR-ToF-MS to rapidly measure multiple yeast strains provides new insights on fermentation for brewers to modify the sensory profile and optimise quality

FT-ICR-MS reveals the molecular imprints of the brewing process

The study of fermentation and brewing has a long history of pioneering discoveries that continue to influence modern industrial food production. Since then, numerous research endeavors have yielded conventional criteria that guide contemporary brewing practices. However, the intricate open challenges faced today necessitate a more exhaustive understanding of the process at the molecular scale. We have developed an ultra-high-resolution mass spectrometric analysis (FT-ICR-MS) of the brewing process that can rapidly and comprehensively resolve thousands of molecules. This approach allows us to track molecular fluctuation during brewing at the level of chemical compositions. Employing biological triplicates, our investigation of two brewing lines that are otherwise identical except for the malt used revealed over 8,000 molecular descriptors of the brewing process. Metabolite imprints of both the similarities and differences arising from deviating malting temperatures were visualized. Additionally, we translated traditional brewing attributes such as the EBC-value, free amino nitrogen, pH-value, and concentration curves of specific molecules, into highly correlative molecular patterns consisting of hundreds of metabolites. These in-depth molecular imprints provide a better understanding of the molecular circumstances leading to various changes throughout the brewing process. Such chemical maps go beyond the observation of traditional brewing attributes and are of great significance in the investigation strategies of current open challenges in brewing research. The molecular base of knowledge, along with advancements in technological and data integration schemes, can facilitate the efficient monitoring of brewing and other productions processes